California pushes first US vaccine mandate for schoolchildren

I've personally been vaccinated against COVID-19.

But I'm philosophically uncomfortable with the government being able to require me or my family to submit to an injection or any form of medical treatment.

Creating a bunch of second-class citizens who can't access education, employment or travel seems like it's just a bad idea.

I do have a few doubts about the vaccine:

- If the vaccine's so safe and effective, why do the vaccine companies have a liability shield?

- Why are so many medical workers, who know more about vaccines than I do, and see COVID deaths every day, refusing the vaccine? What do they know that I don't?

- If the years of testing traditionally required by vaccines were always deemed a necessary safety protocol, isn't skipping them essentially gambling that the COVID vaccine doesn't have long-term side effects?

- Why will COVID vaccines eventually require boosters? Why don't they do what they did for measles and polio and whatnot, and make a vaccine that lasts a lifetime?

- If I'm not given reasonable answers to these questions, and instead told "Shut up and take it, or you'll lose your job, your kids will be forced out of school, and you'll never be able to get on an airplane again," why is it so unreasonable for me to conclude that maybe someone somewhere in the government or the big pharma companies knows the answers to these questions are, shall we say, not exactly reassuring?

Vaccine mandates are bad policy and dangerous precedent.

It will be interesting to look at the court challenges. Yes, other vaccines are mandated for schools, but the covid vaccines have not gone through the normal approval process by the FDA (which is time consuming), and thus were given only an emergency Temporary Use Authorization, and you need to sign away your right to sue or the vendor will refuse to give you the vaccine. That's not the case with something like the measles vaccine (or really any other medical treatment), which is FDA approved and does not require waiving patient rights to obtain. Having the government require everyone to waive patient rights in order to attend school is going to create some legal challenges.

> Newsom said the mandate won’t take effect for all children until the U.S. government has finished fully vetting the vaccine for two age groups — 12 to 15 and 5 to 11. That means those in seventh to 12th grades probably will have until July to get their shots. It will be even longer for children in kindergarten through sixth grades because the government has yet to approve any COVID-19 vaccine for that age group.

> California law requires all children enrolled in public and private schools to have 10 immunizations, with exceptions for medical reasons. For the coronavirus vaccine, California will grant exemptions for medical reasons, plus religious and personal beliefs. The rules for those exemptions will be written after the state hears comments from the public. Any student without an exemption who refuses to get the vaccine would be forced to do independent study at home.